Title: In Praise of Labor
Video performance | Duration: 2 min 59 sec

A site-specific video installation, created during a five-week working period in Slovenia in an old mercury mine in Idrija. As part of IPIHAN #15: website: ifparadiseishalfasnice

A video performance centered on the act of climbing ladders—beginning underground, in the mine, and continuing upward, ascending every staircase in the surrounding area.

Because mining is such physically demanding work, the repetitive act of climbing brought me closer to that reality. Ladders, narrow passages, and confined spaces echo the daily conditions miners had to endure.

There is also something transformative in the act of going up—as if the movement connects the underground and the world above, both literally and symbolically. Perhaps even spiritually. The video is therefore projected in a circular format on the ceiling, referencing the tradition of church ceiling paintings—creating a link between sacred space and industrial labor.

Above all, this performance is an ode to the miners and their physical labor: a gesture of respect for the effort, strain, and endurance they carried each day.

( Organ music: Marco Nijland, Fantasia, Psalm 118 )

Title: 800 Tonnes
Video Animation / Duration: 3 min 38 sec

A site-specific animation, created during a five-week working period in Slovenia in an old mercury mine in Idrija. As part of IPIHAN #15: website: ifparadiseishalfasnice

Ants are like tiny miners: highly efficient, incredibly strong, and remarkably organized.
They can carry up to 50 times their own body weight and work together without hierarchy—no managers, no foremen—just instinctive collaboration and mutual aid.

Human miners often labored in long shifts—12 hours a day, six days a week.
During its most prosperous years, the mine produced approximately 800 tonnes of mercury and 50–100 tonnes of cinnabar.

Now imagine this on an ant scale. Assume a single ant can displace about 5 grams of soil per 24-hour period. In an average colony of 3,000 ants, that amounts to 1.5 kilograms of earth per day.
Some colonies, however, exceed 10,000 workers—greatly amplifying their collective excavation power.

These hand-drawn, animated ants can thus be imagined as doing their share of the digging.
In this video projection, hand-drawn ants dig shafts and tunnels, mirroring the vast human effort behind centuries of mining.

2024

‘I have anger issues too’ is the title of the exhibition at the Kunstler*innenhaus Frise in Hamburg. For this exhibition, I created new work tailor-made for the space. Broken plasterboards become objects on the wall, on the floor and on the ceiling. Together with my Videos, in which I break down and breach walls, these new objects form aesthetic remnants of destructive actions.

Material: Plasterboard, wood and paint

Made possible by Mondriaanfonds

Title: Machteloos / Powerless

Video performances / Duration: 1.34 minutes / Duration 2.01 minutes

In these video performances, Judy van Luyk depicts her personal struggle against powerlessness. The work stems from her sense of inability to change anything in our society. Because there is a lot of bad news in the world and it is getting very close, she wonders what this does to her: It makes her anxious, distressed, trapped, but also angry and combative. She reasons that if this is how it feels to her, other people might recognize these feelings of helplessness. The artist finds herself in cramped spaces, filled with smoke and limited vision, where she struggles to free herself: a probing confrontation that raises questions about violence and liberation.

Title: Slopen is geen must / To demolish is not a must

construction sign 260cmx360cm: plasterboard, insulation material, wood, concrete and epoxy, 2021 

The artwork SLOPEN IS GEEN MUST , has the form of a billboard and was shown at 6 different outdoor locations in Rotterdam. By placing this work in the context of the city, Judy van Luyk drew extra attention to the social discussion which was going on about Rotterdam's housing policy.

With her work, Van Luyk wants to give heart to the residents of Rotterdam who have resisted demolition plans. At the same time, her billboard is an aesthetic work of art: she carefully made holes in a regular pattern. This neat regularity contrasts with the centre, which seems to have just been hit by a wrecking ball. Large, striking, but with drilled holes and a crumbling centre instead of swirling promises of new construction projects. The sign is a sculpture, made of classic building materials such as plasterboard, insulation material, wood and epoxy. Its shape and size demand wordless attention. With the holes and a vanished, drilled-out heart, Van Luyk emphasizes the principle of decay, of disappearance, of demolition. 

Van Luyk's work is not only visually stimulating, but she also wants to use it to initiate a discussion about housing policy and gentrification. The artist does not see demolition as a logical step for the future of a city. Fringe areas and wastelands are just as important as the centre of a city. Public space without a definite function is under pressure, Van Luyk points out. Old residential areas should not automatically make room for new homes, unaffordable for the old residents.

Tentoonstelling in Hilton Art lab van 10 t/m 27 juni 2021

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Exhibition in Hilton Art lab from 10 to 27 June 2021

Title: Kostbar

Photobanner on scaffolding: 11m x 14m and 11m x 50meter, Dresden

The Dutch artist Judy van Luyk marks the building Sidonienstraße 18, on the corner of Petersburger Straße directly at Dresden’s main railway station, visible from afar as “KOSTBAR”. The artist wraps the main façade and one narrow side over the height of three storeys with a photographic banner. 

The motif is deceptively three-dimensional, resembling a wall that has been drilled through many times. In the centre, the drilled holes condense into the lettering KOSTBAR. In a sculptural manner, van Luyk created the template for the motif in her studio by systematically dotting plasterboard with a drill. She performed an act of destruction that looks the same even after it has been enlarged into a banner. 

The pattern thus created even makes one think of bullet holes, of violence. This is no coincidence, van Luyk encountered a city whose surfaces were still scarred by war during her 2018 scholarship stay in Beirut, Lebanon. KOSTBAR is everything that offers people shelter and possibilities for existence.

In this respect, the artist does not actually shroud the building, but symbolically reveals it as marred and vulnerable. As a survivor calling for social and political responsibility within our world of luxury. 

“There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.”  
2017- ongoing / Installation in public space in Rotterdam, Vijverhofstraat 25, The Netherlands
16 lightboxes with photos of broken glass windows

‘There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in’ centres on the quality of imperfections. Places or things around us that we regard as being ugly, have a right to be. Not everything has to be perfect. It is the imperfections that make life exciting and a city lively. The building on which the work of art is displayed will be demolished at some time in the distant future. The decision to use broken windows accentuates this. Every broken window is unique and every hole in the window looks out on a blue sky with clouds. Normally we don’t appreciate the beauty of a broken window, but now our attention is drawn to it, exposing the building as it is, coaxing beauty out of ugliness.

Time’s up 2019/ 2020 / Installation and Stop motion video projected in public space / Rotterdam, The Netherlands

This stop motion video shows the destruction process of a wall segment by means of drilling. By using different drill sizes, the wall slowly crumbles beautifully away, until time runs out. See the video underneath. The installation and video projection was part of an exhibition in a building that is now taken down.

I Love Beirut
2018 / project proposal, photoshop document / Beirut, Lebanon

Drilled holes into left-over outside walls, photographed and then photoshopped into pictures of empty facades of key buildings in Beirut.  

Judy van Luyk spent two months in Beirut and was part of the Beirut Art Residency (BAR). For Judy, it was a city of contradictions; she was touched by the traces of the war, which are still clearly visible in Beirut. Neglected concrete buildings, full of impact holes stand next to shiny skyscrapers. Endless traffic jams, corruption and pollution are part of daily life. And at the same time, the population of the city displays an enormous zest for life; a mix of love, hate and eagerness to change things, which impressed Judy. She explored how to make a work that encompasses the difficult political climate and history, yet remains positive and hopeful. The result is a series of proposals for interventions in public space. By drilling holes, she created the message "I love Beirut"; a tribute to the city and its inhabitants.

Inside out
2017  / Installation with photos in lightboxes.
Alte Nudlefabrik, Zeitz, Germany 

This installation was created during a month of work and research in an old, derelict factory, as part of IPIHAN (a group of artists called ’If paradise is half as nice’). This abandoned factory has been empty for a long time, with only traces of usage and human existence left. But nature slowly takes over. Walls disintegrate, windows break. Plants start growing within its walls and birds make it their home. The border between inside and outside slowly fades away.

Artist versus Concrete
2018 - 2019 / performance, intervention in public space
Roro Buiten, Rotterdam, The Netherlands 

For six months I tried to deconstruct a concrete wall with a drilling machine; a battle between artist and a concrete wall measuring 2 by 3 meters. It was a slow process of attractive deconstruction: patterns emerged and disappeared. The public could influence the outcome by subsidising holes. I would drill 2 holes in return for one euro.

The wall is a standard 2x3 wall which is used to create borders and while working I talked with people about the ideas around building walls and borders. For example, a wall between my home and my neighbour’s is a necessity, to my mind. On the other hand, a wall between Europe and the rest of the world gives me no pleasure. For me, the wall also represents the invisible walls we encounter in everyday life. You try and try, but no matter how hard you fight, you run into a border. How are we supposed to deal with those visible and invisible borders?  You can accept them, climb over them, but pushing straight through them is also an option!

This project was within the context of RoRo-buiten and sponsored by De Borenshop, Labor Holland, CBK-Rotterdam, Gemeente Rotterdam and private donors.

Time’s up
2018  / Stop motion video - performance 1,14 min. /  plasterboard with rockwool 
Rotterdam, The Netherlands

This stop motion video shows the destruction process of a wall segment by means of drilling. By using different drill sizes, the wall slowly crumbles beautifully away, until time runs out. See the video underneath.

In Memoriam
2017  / Installation of broken glass panels, light and shadow.
Alte Nudlefabrik, Zeitz, Germany 

This installation was created during a month of work and research in an old, derelict factory, as part of IPIHAN (a group of artists called ’If paradise is half as nice’). Many windows in the factory were lying around broken so I used them to create the installation ‘In Memoriam’. In the cellar of the factory, a damp and dark vault, I created a silent and almost sacred place for the broken windows to be remembered for what they were and what they have become. Their own shadows form the shapes of the broken glass like paintings on the wall, reminding us of how perfectly unique and special they still are.

357 holes rectangle is a site- specific intervention in Bergen (2018). Showing the animation of the proces of deconstruction and the left-over wall as one piece. The piece was to be seen in the show ‘Bewarehouse of Art Rotterdam’ , during the Kunst 10-daagse Bergen.

See the video underneath.

Stopmotion video 1,20 min. + 2 x plasterboard and rockwool, 2018

‘225 holes square’ was produced in an empty office building in Rotterdam. It is a stop motion video showing the destruction process of a wall segment by means of drill holes. By using different drill sizes, the wall slowly crumbles beautifully away. See also the video underneath.

Places and Traces
2016 - ongoing / Poster installations in public spaces and a series of photos 20x27 cm, on Hahnemühle paper, dibond. 
At different locations in Dresden and Rotterdam

I developed this project during my two-month residency in Dresden. I was very inspired by the ubiquitous graffiti and started photographing facades, ornaments, bricks and graffiti, ultimately creating abstract symbols and icons. For each location I then designed a series of icons which would best fit the building. Some locations were commissioned, but many were utilised without permission. I also made a photo series of this site-specific work, which can be displayed in a gallery setting.

Traces of ceiling and floor 
2016 / photography
3 photos: 80 x 100 cm, on Hahnemühle paper.
16 photos : 20 x 27 cm, on Hahnemühle paper, dibond

For several exhibitions I was asked to create a work related to the place itself. I was inspired by the structure of the ceilings and the floors. I photographed details, creating a series of abstract icons. In addition to these icons, I photographed the entire ceiling and floor in sections, like the pieces of a puzzle.

Poster intervention on the facade of the Goethe Institut, Westersingel 9, Rotterdam. / 2017

Breaking the Image

2006 / Video in a loop, 6 min.

Château de Kerguéhennec, Bretagne, France

‘Breaking the Image’ is a video performance recorded during a short stay at the art centre in Bretagne. The focus lies on the mirror image of the castle and its constant destruction and reappearance.

Place: Teilingerstraat 120, Rotterdam

Collez-les
2007 / site-specific, interactive installation 
Les Halles de la Fonderie, Geneva, Switzerland

Les Halles de la Fonderie used to be a foundry, but has been transformed into an art-project space. The walls displayed many traces of former exhibitions. Every hole and plug was still visible. I wanted to make the visitors aware of all those remnants of past shows. I created sticker sheets containing photos of all the holes left in the space itself. Visitors were invited to pick up a sheet and affix the stickers to the walls, thus creating an active intervention and establishing a reflection of the given space.

2016 / interactive installation /

Material: plug, socket, wood, plexiglas, sound, light and meganical devices / 32x32x32cm

In this installation “connect-us’, an electricity socket en plug play the lead role. The onlooker is invited to connect the two. When so, the red light comes on and the sound of a conversation between a man and woman starts, leading to a climax.  

"It is a surprising and humoristic work and focuses on an everyday object"

Photo' s (black&white) / different sizes

The project 'Landscapes' is a series of table-top photo's. The models were built from paper, sand and other materials. The photograph of the model is the actual work. As a result, the photographed landscapes invite the viewer to look through the camera lens at an imaginary world referencing familiar realities.